Soviet Revisionist Renegades' "Communist Christianity" Shows How Degenerate They Have Become by Yu Fen Peking Review August 22, 1969 re-typed by MC5, Maoist Internationalist Movement [MC5 comments: The 1998 visit of the Pope to Cuba and Castro's admittance of Christians into the party deserves an historical look. It was Khruschev first of modern revisionists to pioneer the idea of the Pope as a "great man dedicated to world peace." Unfortunately, Castro is singing the same song as Khruschev now, but many claiming to be Marxist-Leninist tolerate or encourage him.] Under the "auspices" of the Soviet revisionist chieftains, a minor but hideous farce was acted out not so long ago on the outskirts of Moscow. From different parts of the Soviet Union, patriarchs and priests, monks and imams, and other religious chiefs, numbering more than a hundred in all, gathered for a conference. They made a big noise, discussing what they called "essential problems of our epoch." One Soviet revisionist renegade clique bigwig sent this clutter of churchmen a personal message wishing them success in their show and bidding them "to make contributions to this noble cause of the consolidation of universal peace." This step by that handful of Soviet revisionist renegades, Brezhnev & Co., who are bent on putting religion and superstition back into circulation in the Soviet Union, is an extremely reactionary one. It is an attempt to fool the Soviet people and people the world over and, by using the robes of these patriarchs and priests, to cover up the crimes they have committed at home and abroad. Revisionists of all breeds and brands were denounced by the great Lenin as hens among dung heaps in the backyard of the working-class movement. They peck away at anything, even the filthiest, so long as it keeps them going. Torn by troubles at home and abroad the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has long regarded the reactionary religious forces as a talisman by which it carries out counter-revolutionary revisionist domestic and foreign policies. For years it has been playing the disgusting role of a sycophant of the Vatican, bulwark of the most reactionary religious forces in the world, and sucking up to the Pope, a loyal defender of capitalism. The notorious Khruschov brazenly presented the Pope as a 'great man devoted to world peace.' Following in Khruschov's footsteps, a neo-Soviet revisionist chieftain in his capacity as head of state went on a 'pilgrimage' to Rome and sought an audience with Pope Paul the Sixth. At home, the revisionist renegade clique in the Kremlin takes great pains to speak up for the religious forces. Religion is an opiate. Yet without any hesitation, this clique turns out reactionary religious propaganda through its press and news agencies. It shamelessly trumpets religion as being "beneficial," and hollers for restoring religious education in the schools. Religious forces in the Soviet Union have become increasingly rampant and all-pervasive. Religious rites have increased by three or fourfold in the last tens years. More and more churches and parishes have come into existence. Religious followers now number dozens of millions. In addition, quite a number of seminaries have been set up to train "successors" to the church. After having recently cooked up what it calls "communist Christianity," which is a reactionary fallacy, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique published a spate of press articles advertising the "evolution of the modern Russian Orthodox Church." In the fifth issue of the journal Science Religion, a hired "candidate doctor of philosophy" went to the length of preaching like a priest that the Russian Orthodox Church is an "instrument for transforming social relations." "Christianity," he said, "is harmonious, fitting and in coordination with the process of transforming social relations on socialist and communist principles. Christianity has developed into 'communist Christianity.'" Like revisionism, the sham Marxism-Leninism mouthed by the Soviet revisionists, this "communist Christianity" is said to be most enthusiastically "calling on the believers to take part in the struggle for socialism and socialist construction." Brezhnev & Co. can now very conveniently find in "communist Christianity" a blueprint for "building communism," and even toss their Marxist-Leninist garb to the winds because, it is said, "in the Russian Orthodox Church the building of the kingdom of Christ on earth is more and more associated with communist transformation of the world." Amid such loud braying for "communist Christianity," leading church figures in some areas have openly called meetings in public places, conducted propaganda among the inhabitants and "recruited supporters." What a miasma! Can anyone find anything more degenerate than this! By putting the label of "communism" on Christianity, the Soviet revisionist renegades smugly calculate that they can deceive the people at home and the revolutionary people of the world and provide themselves with a figleaf to cover up their use of the church to push capitalist restoration in all spheres of endeavor and their social-imperialist policies. In fact, this precisely reveals that their so-called "building of communism" is of a piece with the "building of the kingdom of Christ." In using religion, they are taking the idealist and most reactionary stand of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie, and their programme is the same as their deceitful "communist Christianity" propaganda. The proletariat is determined to completely overthrow the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and defeat capitalism by socialism and eventually realize communism. BOLD "Religion is opium for the people." END It is a spiritual weapon of the exploiting classes for oppressing, enslaving and exploiting the labouring people; it manacles the oppressed classes and prevents them from rebelling against their oppressors. Scientific communism is the antithesis of religion. Like fire and water, the struggle for the realization of the ideal of communism in the whole world is incompatible with "the building of the kingdom of Christ on earth." The Manifesto of the Communist Party solemnly declares: The communist revolution's "development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas." Since the great theory of scientific communism came into being, it has been fiercely resisted by the reactionary religious forces, with the Pope as their champion. Lenin pointed out: "We must combat religion -- that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism." The Party and Soviet state led by Lenin and Stalin waged a resolute struggle against all reactionary religious forces. Now, this gang of Soviet revisionist renegades claiming to be loyal to Lenin's behest has shamelessly alleged that Christianity and communism are "harmonious, fitting and in co-ordination" with each other. It has combined communism and Christianity into one, flying the sinister flag of "communist Christianity." This shows to what despicable depths they have sunk. Those in the upper echelons of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique want to be Christian "bishops" so as to dope and hoodwink the Soviet people and the people of the world! But at the same time they want to garland themselves with "communism" to hide their own treachery. Don't they find this double feature far too clumsy and preposterous? Reactionary forces and revisionists of all hues and shades have tried in vain to "incorporate" communism with religion since the advent of Marxism. This trick was used by the "god-building" school that Lenin denounced. The so-called "evolution" and "socialization" of religion in the Soviet Union, as well as the "association" of "kingdom of Christ" with communism, and so forth -- all this is unadulterated religious eyewash. Many prevailing theologians who are today busy with "reforms" are racking their brains searching through theological theory for a "more effective form of expression" of Christianity. They oppose what they called the "flagrant infringement of atheistic materialism and communism upon human dignity." They wildly clamour for "extending the kingdom of Christ to the furthermost limits of the earth" and "propagating the gospel" among the proletariat. But all their charlatanism cannot be compared with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique's trickery. The Kremlin renegades have come out as "communist" theologians to prove that in their sham communism the ideals of Christianity have been translated into reality. Why do the Soviet hierarchs now consider it possible to energetically support the political and philosophical propositions of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique? They themselves have put their finger on the matter. They support the political "principles" of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique because, they say, "these principles are in accord with the needs of Christianity." It was nobody but Khruschov, Brezhnev and their kind, who after coming to power, have converted the bourgeoisie's "hope of restoration" into " attempts at restoration." They usurped the leadership of the Party of Lenin and Stalin and turned the world's first state under the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dark fascist state under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The reactionary religious bosses have found such a "process" of capitalist restoration very "harmonious, fitting and in co-ordination" with their desires. That is why they have applauded it and are willingly working for the Soviet revisionist renegade clique. In playing up "communist Christianity," the Soviet revisionist renegade clique extols religion as an "instrument for transforming social relations." Such a shameless utterance can only expose still more clearly the hideous features of these revisionist renegades who are making the most of the reactionary religious forces to quicken the pace of full-scale capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union. Religion has always been a tool in the hands of the exploiting classes to dominate, enslave and poison the minds of the labouring people. The great teacher of the proletariat Karl Marx said: "The social principles of Christianity had justified ancient slavery, extolled medieval serfdom and, when necessary, will also defend, although with a look of pity, the oppression of the proletariat." Therefore, religion has always been supported and used by the reactionary ruling classes: by the slave-owners of slave society, by the landlords of feudal society and by the capitalists of capitalist society. The Soviet people will never forget how the old tsars always used the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument for maintaining their sanguinary rule in their feudal empire. After the founding of Soviet power, the overthrown reactionary ruling classes, in a bid to seize back their lost paradise, organized an anti-Soviet "crusade" to subvert the first socialist state with the help of the reactionary religious forces and in co-ordination with international imperialism. Still less will the Chinese people forget how the imperialists used religion for cultural aggression and, in its wake, military and political aggression against our country, and turned China into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. At the time of the founding of the great People's Republic of China, the imperialists again used reactionary religious forces to poison the minds of some backward people. These forces also served as cat's-paws in their attempt to subvert and undermine our country. Used by a handful of counter- revolutionaries, religion, whether in Catholic or Protestant garb, has always been an anti-communist, anti- people imperialist task force and an imperialists instrument of aggression. That the Soviet revisionist renegade clique now employs the Russian Orthodox Church to "transform social relations" is not very original. This is merely a mantle inherited from the old tsars, and a leaf taken from the stinking book of U.S. imperialism. While working out its reactionary theory of "communist Christianity," the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, which is capable of anything foul and base openly applauded the Russian Orthodox Church ecclesiastics in the press for following the Kremlin's "international policy" and supporting its "efforts in ensuring international security." This is an unsolicited confession which gives away its counter- revolutionary aim of using the reactionary religious forces to push its social-imperialist policies. at present, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique is stepping up collusion with U.S. imperialism, intensifying suppression of the revolutionary struggle of the people of different countries and strengthening control over and exploitation of some East European countries and the People's Republic of Mongolia. These criminal activities are proof that the Soviet revisionist renegade clique's "international policy" is an imperialist policy of collecting all reactionary riffraff to carry out expansion abroad. Even while continually intruding into Chinese territory and air space and shooting down unarmed Chinese fishermen and herdsmen, the Kremlin clique has been using religion for counter-revolutionary subversive propaganda through its radio programmes beamed to China's Sinkiang. This is an attempt to drive a wedge into the unity of our motherland and disrupt our country's national solidarity. The old tsars [used] religion to carry out divisive activities in Sinkiang, and now the Soviet revisionist renegade clique is doing the same thing. From this, people throughout the world can clearly see once again that this handful of renegades are out-and-out social-imperialists and new tsars, pure and simple. We firmly warn the chieftains of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique: You can go on using reactionary clergymen to carry out counter-revolutionary activities, but you will come to no good end. Chairman Mao, the great leader of all the nationalities of our country, pointed out in his work On Coalition Government: "All religions are permitted in China' s Liberated Areas, in accordance with the principle of freedom of religious belief. All believers in Protestantism, Catholicism, Islamism, Buddhism and other faiths enjoy the protection of the people's government as long as they are abiding by its laws. Everyone is free to believe or not to believe; neither compulsion nor incrimination is permitted." It is our consistent policy to protect the freedom of religious belief and the freedom of not believing in any religion. Communists abide by a policy of freedom of religious belief; but towards religious believers, "we can never approve of their idealism or religious doctrines." We must criticize and repudiate idealist monasticism and all kinds of religious obscurantism. We are convinced the time will come when followers of religious faiths will awake and throw away their "idols." That the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, which has completely betrayed the rudimentary principles of Marxism- Leninism, should have acted perversely and gone so far as to rake up its reactionary "communist Christianity" nonsense in an effort to shore up its counter-revolutionary revisionist rule only shows the depths of its political and ideological degeneration. It is a reflection of its mortal fear of the doom awaiting it. Did the Soviet revisionist renegade clique not instruct the religious heirarchs it groomed to discuss so- called "essential problems of our epoch"? The essential problem of our epoch, as pointed out by Vice- Chairman Lin Piao in his political report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is: "The contradiction between the oppressed nations on the one hand and imperialism and social- imperialism on the other; the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries; the contradiction between imperialist and social-imperialist countries and among the imperialist countries; and the contradiction between socialist countries on the one hand and imperialism and social-imperialism on the other. The existence and development of these contradictions are bound to give rise to revolution." U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and all reaction can never survive this great storm of people's revolution, nor can "communist Christianity" save the revisionist renegade clique in the Kremlin from destruction. Acute class differentiation and bitter class struggle are taking place in Soviet society. This arises from the fact that this renegade clique is ruthlessly carrying out the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the Soviet people and pursuing a social-imperialist policy of expansion abroad. The Soviet revisionist chieftains are simply daydreaming and wasting their time if they think the use of religious forces can benumb and disintegrate the revolutionary fighting will of the Soviet people who are rising against them. It will only promote their steady awakening and arouse them to greater resistance; it will only open the eyes of the people of the world still more to the degeneration and shamelessness of this gang of renegades. The revolutionary movement of the proletariat of the world and the people of all countries today is surging forward vigorously. The struggle of the Soviet proletariat and the broad masses of the Soviet people against the Soviet revisionist renegade clique is developing in depth. Imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries are getting closer and closer to their graves. As pointed out by Chairman Mao, the great leader of all the nationalities of our country, "Working hand in glove, Soviet revisionism and U.S. imperialism have done so many foul and evil things that the revolutionary people the world over will not let them go unpunished. The people of all countries are rising. A new historical period of struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism has begun." Invoking the reactionary religious forces to put up a last-ditch struggle will only bring the Soviet revisionist renegade clique a speedier and more ignominious defeat. This, too, is the will of "god." But this "god" is none other than the proletariat and revolutionary people of the world, the Soviet people included.